Sony Includes a Ring Remote With its New Underwater Headphones

The biggest issue with wearing all-inclusive wireless headphones like Sony's new waterproof WS610 series is that the playback controls usually end up sitting somewhere near your ears, and completely out of sight. So to save users from having to fumble around to find volume and track buttons on their heads, Sony has moved them to a wireless ring remote that can be worn on either hand for easy access.

Available in three colours, the headphones feature NFC and Bluetooth for wirelessly streaming music from a smartphone, but when used in a pool you're not going to want your phone in your pocket so they also come with 16 GB of built-in storage for keeping MP3s on board. They're rated to a depth of about two metres so they're best suited for swimming laps instead of diving, and that includes the wireless ring remote which can be operated with your thumb, even without looking.

The Ws610 series start at £129 and boast a run-time of about seven hours on a full charge. But even when dead you can bring them back to life for about an hour with just three minutes of charging, which should be more than enough to get you through an impromptu workout. [Sony UK via Akihabara News]